Chris O’Kane
banner
budgetmotelabyss.bsky.social
Chris O’Kane
@budgetmotelabyss.bsky.social
Middle aged punk from a Quaker family.

Aspiring Danish Marxist

Working on finishing a book on A Critical Theory of Capitalist Social Domination while I train to be a clinical social worker.

Full Communism Now
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.
Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz
Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison
www.forever-wars.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:40 PM
truly deranged
In line for the TSA behind this guy
December 9, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
The London based MayDay Rooms’ anarcho-punk archive is a valuable resource for radical cultures and politics today, writes Seth Wheeler in The Wire 503/4

Read the full article online:

www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/c...
Against The Grain: Archiving anarcho-punk - The Wire
The London based MayDay Rooms’ anarcho-punk archive is a valuable resource for radical cultures and politics today, writes Seth Wheeler in The Wire 503/4
www.thewire.co.uk
December 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Good way of framing it
December 8, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
A new era for LPE — a more democratic one, not subject to university administrators and not reliant on funder money.

LPE lfg

lpeproject.org/blog/lpe-2-0...
LPE 2.0: A New Association to Meet the Times
As the Trump administration attempts to suppress critical inquiry and operate outside of conventional legal boundaries, the work of LPE scholars, organizers, and practitioners has never been more…
lpeproject.org
December 8, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Wish this could have been the cover of Cooper’s Counterrevolution
They look like Dick Tracy villains
December 7, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
*new translation*

THE BOOK OF ABOLITIONS
by Karl Korsch

www.endnotes.org.uk/palabre/the-...
December 7, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
kicking off the new site with a piece on the Anti-ICE actions in LA:

ANGELS AND DEMONS
by HB

www.endnotes.org.uk/palabre/ange...
December 5, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
And a series of responses to Idris Robinson by Gerardo Muñoz and Rodrigo Karmy Bolton

www.endnotes.org.uk/palabre/on-i...
December 5, 2025 at 7:32 AM
In other news, pretty sure I sat next to Blake Schwarzenbach at Idris's book launch?
December 7, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
“Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a memo outlining methods for bringing charges against various entities they accuse of being aligned with antifa.”

thehill.com/policy/natio...
thehill.com
December 6, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
this is really grim
December 7, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
Really astounding (racist) sh*t
The new National Security Strategy of the U.S. contains some pretty explicit white nationalism:

“We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of
Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.”
December 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
the reason its bad to run universities like businesses is that almost all businesses fail on any reasonable timeline of evaluation.

hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity
They claim financial exigency, but then turn down $4 million pledges to keep the PhD programs open and disregard financial analyses that point to the real problem—bad real estate deals, spending on consultants, and their own salaries 2/2
December 6, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
Maximally auratic and somewhat reproducible: Walter Benjamin’s original notes on what aura is on San Pellegrino paper (1936-9)
December 6, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
So many of these institutions of higher education bringing about their own demise in totally preventable ways…
They claim financial exigency, but then turn down $4 million pledges to keep the PhD programs open and disregard financial analyses that point to the real problem—bad real estate deals, spending on consultants, and their own salaries 2/2
December 6, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
They claim financial exigency, but then turn down $4 million pledges to keep the PhD programs open and disregard financial analyses that point to the real problem—bad real estate deals, spending on consultants, and their own salaries 2/2
December 6, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
Speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, yes leadership is apparently planning to cut 50% of the faculty at the New School for Social Research in order to eliminate social research and replace scholarship with a trendy MA degree mill For the 21st Century 1/
December 6, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
Why am I not surprised? It was obvious this was bound to happen when they built that ugly flagship building—there was some controversy but can’t remember what exactly.
They claim financial exigency, but then turn down $4 million pledges to keep the PhD programs open and disregard financial analyses that point to the real problem—bad real estate deals, spending on consultants, and their own salaries 2/2
December 6, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
it’s the perfect higher ed admin endpoint: incredibly lazy, a total betrayal of education as an ideal, and seething with hate for faculty
“School officials have created a Microsoft Copilot prompt to review course descriptions with an eye toward avoiding ‘advocacy-oriented or prescriptive terms.’”

Terms: “dismantling, decolonizing, interrogating, challenging, centering, combating, liberation, resistance, activism, justice oriented”
To Root Out Wokeness in the Course Catalog, This Texas University Is Turning to AI
“The AI was upset with my use of the phrase ‘women's rights movement.’”
www.texasmonthly.com
December 6, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
I spoke with Any Lucía López Belloza, the Babson College student who was on her way to surprise her family for Thanksgiving when ICE deported her.

"My 5-year-old sister still believes that I might go home for Christmas," she tells me.

www.thecut.com/article/any-...
I Wanted to Surprise My Family on Thanksgiving. ICE Deported Me Instead.
How the Trump administration turned a college freshman’s life upside down.
www.thecut.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:28 PM
alongside tenured professors from private universities and the countless TT and non-tenure track firings we will probably never know about.
December 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Touching but hard to read all these posts by people who were indelibly shaped by Asad’s teaching at a time when admin are hell bent on dismantling one of the institutions he taught at. My condolences to his students. We need a new world.
December 6, 2025 at 12:06 PM
This is just too sad. Can’t say anything more than my love to those who loved him and those he loved.
December 6, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Chris O’Kane
I enjoyed this paper a lot -- a good companion to "Telling the Truth about Class" by G.M. Tamas, IMHO.
December 3, 2025 at 5:35 PM